Sharia police in the Indonesian province of Aceh will publicly flog a young woman for adultery after she was turned in by eight vigilantes who had already gang-raped her as punishment.

The woman, a 25-year-old widow, and her alleged partner, a married 40-year old man, were caught inside her home last Thursday by a group of eight who were intent on enforcing the sharia prohibition on sex outside marriage, local media reports say.

The eight, who included a 13-year-old boy, tied up and beat the man and repeatedly raped the woman before dousing both in raw sewage.

They then marched the couple to the office of the local sharia police.

Hard to get a better example of why sharia law is evil.

Religions and states should not be mixed up, with the state having the power to enforce religious dictates. This is what happens when you do.

As always, it is important to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. There’s nothing wrong with a religion where people choose to join it, and voluntarily follow its teachings.

But there’s a lot wrong with Islamism, which is a political ideology based on implementing certain interpretations of Islamic practice into law.

It is my view that Islamism (not Islam) is as incompatible with having free democratic states as communism and fascism are. They are have an ideology where the state is all powerful.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2014 at 11:00 am and is filed under International Politics.
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156 Responses to “The evils of sharia law”

Islam in its pure Koranic form is very incompatible with democracy and freedom when interpreted in context. Saying that, I don’t recall the whole gang rape thing being a punishment of Sharia Law. That happens in other religious ethnic groups too and probably predates Islam. I stand to be corrected as I’m in no way an expert.

The thing is though, I don’t know if you can separate Islam from “Islamism”. Islamists are just following what the Koran teaches, and it can’t be changed.

One good thing that I have seen recently is that Hollywood has started to take notice (albeit, rather slowly). The Sultan of Brunei has just begun to enact Sharia law, so Hollywood types (including Jay Leno) are boycotting hotels owned by the Sulatan, such as the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air.

The Beverly Hills Hotel has a rich Hollywood history, but that hasn’t stopped comedians Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres, among others, from protesting and speaking out against its owners.

Leno joined protesters across the street from the hotel Monday to decry the fact that the hotel is owned by the oil-rich government of Brunei.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in the headlines of late over the phasing in of new Islamic laws that will enact harsh punishments for homosexuality, abortions and adultery.

Other celebrities like Sharon Osbourne and Richard Branson have also taken to social media to speak out against Brunei’s harsh criminal laws. On April 22, DeGeneres tweeted, “I won’t be visiting the Hotel Bel-Air or the Beverly Hills Hotel until this is resolved” (Brunei also owns Hotel Bel-Air).

Hassanal Bolkiah, sultan of Brunei, began enacting the new Shariah laws this month, which call for a range of punishments, including fines and imprisonment for those who fail to show up for Friday prayers or who get pregnant outside of marriage, the Washington Post reported.

“The decision to implement the [Shariah penal code] is not for fun but is to obey Allah’s command as written in the Koran,” Bolkiah said last week.

Later this year the punishments will ramp up, with flogging and the severing of limbs becoming the punishment for those who rob or commit property crimes. And death by stoning is also scheduled to take effect next year for those who commit sodomy or who enter adulterous relationships.

Most of these punishments can also be applied to the nation’s 440,000 non-Muslims — one-third of the country’s population, as the Associated Press noted.

“This is 2014, not 1814,” Leno told the crowd, according to the Los Angeles Times.

He continued, “Evil flourishes when good people do nothing, and that is pretty much what this is. This is not complicated. These are not crazy left-wing wacko people.”

The comedian and former “Tonight Show” host went on to say that the controversy over Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling should be considered minor when compared to what’s happening in Brunei.

“I mean, we get so upset when a team owner says something inappropriate,” Leno added. “Here are people being killed, stoned to death. … It’s just a matter of priorities, that’s what it is.”

David, sometimes you can be very naive. There is little distinction between Islam and Islamism – the distinction lies in how far the extremists are willing to practice the demands of “the religion of peace.”

People who make comparisons to the Old Testament have an excellent point – often a better point than they realise. Put simply, we dont have bands of fanatics going around making human sacrifices, offering their daughters to be raped by visitors and all the other lunancies the OT contains…But there is no equivalent to the New Testament in the Koran, and no shortage of dangerous fanatics quite happy to enforce their sacred book’s every awful outrage.

While this is an example of evil, I don’t think you’ve picked the right aspect of this event to hold against Sharia law.

You’ve quoted the barbarism of a mob who acted on their own recognizance, that is not itself something to hold against Sharia.

What happened next, that the authority acting under such law had no heart or mercy to consider the abuses already suffered by the woman in sentencing her without concern to being lashed is the relevant part to condemn Sharia law for – the lack of autonomy it permits, the prejudice against women and the pitilessness of doctrine over empathy deserve condemnation.

But you don’t strengthen arguments about that by holding up a mob as examples of legal authority.

Fletch: The most disturbing thing about those images for me are the children in both shots…it is obviously a sight they have seen before…none of them seem upset or even particularly interested…Awful stuff..

Here’s a challenge to the “What about the Old Testament?” Wallahs…please find an image like the ones Fletch has posted showing the enforcement of some barbarous punishment contained in the OT

I’m saddened to see that you’ve bought into the false Islam / Islamism dichotomy.

Let’s take a concrete example that disproves your argument: capital punishment for apostasy.

“… in all the major schools of law in Islam (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafii, Maliki and the Shiite Jafari school) there is unanimity that the penalty for apostasy is death. The difference is only whether an apostate is given the opportunity to repent or not, or whether he is given a certain number of days to repent. But it is a fact that Islamic Law demands everywhere that the apostate is put to death.” [1]

Here [2] is Dr. Mohammad Mukadam, (then) Chairman of the Association of Muslim Schools, stating in debate with Richard Dawkins that the penalty for apostasy is death.

Now, let’s look at the treatment in law in various countries [3]:

* Afghanistan – illegal (death penalty, although the U.S. and other coalition members have put pressure that has prevented recent executions)

* Malaysia – illegal in five of 13 states (fine, imprisonment, and flogging)

* Mauritania – illegal (death penalty if still apostate after 3 days)

* Oman – legal in criminal code, but according to the family code, a father can lose custody of his child

* Pakistan – illegal (death penalty since 2007)

* Qatar – illegal (death penalty)

* Saudi Arabia – illegal (death penalty, although there have been no recently reported executions)

* Somalia – illegal (death penalty)

* Sudan – illegal (death penalty, although there have only been recent reports of torture, and not of execution)

* United Arab Emirates – illegal (3 years’ imprisonment, flogging)

* Yemen – illegal (death penalty)

So. There is complete agreement amongst all major sources of Islamic law that apostasy should be punishable by death; in many Islamic countries it is, and in others it is otherwise punishable.

At the very least then, *Islam* is incompatible with freedom of religion. Not Islamism, not terrorism, not ‘misunderstanders of Islam’ but Islam the religion, as it is interpreted and acted on throughout the world.

“As always, it is important to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. There’s nothing wrong with a religion where people choose to join it, and voluntarily follow its teachings.”

I disagree. Look up the “ZUS” zones in France. Those are 750 zones that are controlled by Muslims. Those came about as a result of *Islam* and as the result of people’s naive misunderstanding of it as “just another religion”.

The two worst mistakes you can make about Islam are to think of it as a religion, and to think that terrorism is its biggest danger. Its biggest danger is in fact subversion and destruction of local culture, laws and values.

The word “Islamism” is a construct of Westerners who cannot bring themselves to believe that Islam is as bad as it is. It is a thing made to make Westerners feel better about things.
“Islam cannot *possibly be that bad. Let’s create a thing called Islamism and *that* can be the evil thing instead.”

“But there’s a lot wrong with Islamism, which is a political ideology based on implementing certain interpretations of Islamic practice into law.”

*Islam* is indeed a political ideology. The Koran states 91 times that Muslims should follow the example of Mohammad.
That is not “religion” – that is much more a *cultish* thing – “I did this so you must do it too”.
Mohammad preaches in Mecca for 10 years and gained only 150 converts. It was only when he moved to Medina and became a **political and military** leader that Islam took off.
Islam is much more of a political and military ideology than a religion.

It isn’t the religion that is the problem, it is the lack of secular authority that creates a power vacuum for religious allegiance.

In the U.S Christian ministers call for the stoning of homosexuals (and have helped fund and implement such laws in Africa) but have not the power to do it within the U.S. They would if they could, and if they had such power would fight among themselves to show who was the staunchest Christian most willing to do the greatest evil in their Gods name.

But secular authority has taken that power from them in the “West” after years of war over the matter of who has the right to govern. No such thing has happened in some other places where authority remains disjointed, dispersed, often held at a tribal level, often physically fought for where commitment to violence trumps wisdom.

Nigeria is a good example of the politics that confounds disarming the religious bigot. Boko Haram is an Islamic movement that hates western secularism and fights to exclude it, recently in the news for kidnapping hundreds of girls from their school to curtail their education and buttress Boko Harams authority. Currently they threaten to sell them to slavery.

The Nigerian government, nothing but a self conceited pit of vipers that concern themselves with nothing but plundering the country for their own gain are ineffective through lack of concern in dealing with this issue in particular and Boko Haram in general. Protestors demanding they do their job of protecting all Nigerians are arrested for being trouble makers.

So what are people endangered by these evils to do? They must bind tight in local loyalties to family and tribe by markers of community such as religion and race.

The west benefits from strong central governments deriving authority from election and philosophies born of weariness at the pointlessness of tribal conflict destroying wealth. That, if people are concerned for our future, is what we must protect, and that, if we want to stop certain evils in the world, is what we must help others obtain.

It cannot be imposed for that is to persist the conflicts. Set an example, demonstrate and offer the wealth it creates and hardest of all for it incurs cost to us, try and find ways not to participate in the exploitation that drives violence.

The thing is though, I don’t know if you can separate Islam from “Islamism”. Islamists are just following what the Koran teaches, and it can’t be changed.

According to the Koran you can’t. Islam as laid out IS a political/religious movement, or at least one that requires political conformity to religious teaching.

In contrast (and in anticipation of Kea turning up!) Christianity arose in a context of political oppression, and despite the now-dead attempt at Christendom, is content to defer political conformity to an intervention from heaven at the end of the age. Doesn’t make historic abuses committed in the name of Christendom such as crusades, pogroms, holocausts or ethnic cleansing right. But political intolerance and a need to have religious hands on the levers of state power is not inherent within the teaching of the New Testament.

Also, while some argue Zionism is the natural end result of Judaism, I disagree. Judaism as an ethnic religion has survived for 2500 years in mostly in situations of limited political power or oppression.

BUT it is not just about what the religion’s original text teaches – more importantly it is also about WHAT people do. I would suggest the great Kemal Ataturk in the (continually secular) nation of Turkey that confirms islam does not have to resort to Islamism. He hauled his nation out of the 14th century and into the 20th within one generation.

Hopefully in the decades and centuries ahead that will become the dominant paradigm for Moslem religious/political development, and not the current pack of theological idiots dominating the headlines.

Quote – “I think the best thing any of us can do is to simply help other non-Muslims learn about Islam. Because Islam is so successful, its teachings are becoming more and more influential on the world stage, and its built-in aggressiveness should be curbed. But the only way it can be curbed is if enough people know about it. The way we understand Islam determines what policies we collectively endorse or reject about it.

It is because **lying is permitted in Islam**. Anything that helps Islam to spread or makes it seem good is permitted.

A Muslim will show you what LOOKS like a peaceful-sounding verse from the Koran. What he will not tell you is that the verse will have been *abrogated* (superceded) by a more violent verse (and if you ask him about that, he will lie).

Yes, but that’s what anti-Christians say about Christians and the Bible.

Would you suggest learning about Christianity from Christians or from anti-Christians?

That means that ANY “secular authority” will not make a blind bit of difference in Islamic countries because that so-called “authority” would be *manmade* and therefore *below* the laws of Allah.

This is true of all religions that claim authority from divinity over humanity. Christianity makes exactly the same claim yet our secular government denies it’s priests authority.

Similarly in Indonesia, the most populous of Islamic countries, Imams and other claimants to Allah’s authority are restricted to degrees they are not elsewhere.

It is not Islam per se that makes the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Brunei as evil as they are – for if it were all places it holds sway would be as evil. It is the customs and politics religion is invoked to enforce that are the source of the evil. If they were Christian countries it would be Christianity they invoked.

Saudi Arabia purposefully preaches the most dire messages in a deliberate and cynical policy to turn wrath away from it’s own abuses and outwards towards others.

And similarly, where secular authority is weak and authority held locally in many places, whatever religion or other cause is available will be used to bind people to action and will be conflated routinely by politics with every deed and policy in discourse.

And here we are conflating things – the cynical politics of Saudi Arabia is not all and the same of a tribes adherence to medieval concepts of Sharia in the local disciplining of their community no more than gay bashing or racist assault in a western nation is one and the same as a politicians cynical prayer in public.

We know religion is a curse to politics and should be kept out of our governing ourselves, I doubt many here would dispute that, and all who don’t will agree that Islamic influence in politics is pernicious. The actual tenets of the religion are beside the point and arguments about who or what is the truest practitioner of any religion are beside the point.

“We know religion is a curse to politics and should be kept out of our governing ourselves, I doubt many here would dispute that, and all who don’t will agree that Islamic influence in politics is pernicious. The actual tenets of the religion are beside the point”

No, they’re not, because those tenets explicitly *require* Muslims to exert influence in politics. Separation of Church and State is inimical to Islam, and people need to understand that. That ‘pernicious influence’ flows directly from the principles of the religion.

Would you suggest learning about Christianity from Christians or from anti-Christians?

Why not both? Both those within and without who are prepared to express an opinion tend to be propagandists. So both points of view can have value as long as you listen with a discerning ear.

But then if the activities of a particular group within a religion are particularly grievous and offensive to the hearer, and in some sense representative or stemming from essential features of the religion in question, then that usually results in the phone quickly coming off the hook.

Which, as both Christianity and Islam are both self-consciously missionary religions, is THEIR PR problem – and not necessarily narrow-mindedness on the part of those that reject them. Keeping an open mind is a necessary virtue if it is kept open long enough to provisionally close and capture something worthwhile – with the willingness to re-open if new data and material facts comes to hand.

But the personal quest for religious truth does not have to be exhaustive – just sufficient.

No, they’re not, because those tenets explicitly *require* Muslims to exert influence in politics. Separation of Church and State is inimical to Islam, and people need to understand that. That ‘pernicious influence’ flows directly from the principles of the religion.

And go back 50 or more years and EXACTLY the same things were said about what Roman Catholics would do whenever the Pope said, ‘jump”.

Any religious group, like any other, is perfectly entitled to “exert influence in politics”. Baptists try it, so do Anglicans, so too do farmers, bosses, and workers. And so too can Moslems – as long as they do so in a way that still respects the separate spheres of church/mosque/temple and state, and in a way that allows others with differing views to exercise their hard-won civic freedoms. Even though their religion teaches otherwise. ACTIONS are what people are accountable for in a secular state, not beliefs, thoughts, and motives.

Just as as long as the state continues treat all religious adherents as equals without fear or favour.

Which the overwhelming vast majority of Muslims have been doing in New Zealand for over 100 years…

It is not Islam per se that makes the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Brunei as evil as they are – for if it were all places it holds sway would be as evil. It is the customs and politics religion is invoked to enforce that are the source of the evil.

In this case, we have a woman facing being flogged for adultery in the Shariah judicial system, and the guys who gang-raped her are having to be prosecuted in the secular system because Shariah doesn’t find their crime significant enough to bother with. I guess it would be possible to argue that it’s Indonesian custom, not Shariah, sentencing her to a flogging and settling for a stern telling off for her rapists, but that argument would have a pretty significant evidential hurdle to overcome.

The thing to keep in mind is that the guy sentencing this woman to a flogging is doing Islam properly. Same with the Boko Haram guy who says Islam allows him to sell the girls he abducted into sex slavery – he’s right, it does. Same with the death penalty for apostacy – if you believe Islam provides instructions from God, you must believe God instructs you to kill apostates. It’s an appalling totalitarian ideology that makes fascism look trivial, and the fact that many of its followers don’t practice what it preaches doesn’t make it any less contemptible.

No, they’re not, because those tenets explicitly *require* Muslims to exert influence in politics. Separation of Church and State is inimical to Islam, and people need to understand that. That ‘pernicious influence’ flows directly from the principles of the religion.

This point has been made endlessly on this blog on this issue – and yet it apparently has to be repeated endlessly. In Islam there never was a Render unto Ceaser what is Ceaser’s …. hook on which a separation of church and state could be explicitly built and recognised by the religion itself. So you could have separate sects of Christianity not just accepting that they would not control the state, but actually demanding that as a way of avoiding persecution themselves.

In Islam there is no equivalent, which means whatever separation does occur does so because of force from a secular (or at least semi-secular) state and has to be maintained by force, e.g Turkey under Attaturk. When that force weakens Islamists simply rush to fill the gap again. It’s also why there is constant struggle between the various sects of Islam. Unlike the Christian sect’s they know that the other side gaining state power means very bad things for them – but the tenets of their faith mean there’s no way out except to gain the levers of state power themselves.

And note that this has been going on for a thousand years with little progress theologically. You can see almost identical horrors in the terrible battles between Catholic and Protestant in Britain and Europe where each fought for state power for decades (even centuries). But eventually both sides recognised that the mutual bloodletting had to die down if the societies were to survive at all. Each side may not have liked it and still called the other heretics, but they eventually found a way to (grudgingly) reconcile, including adapting their own beliefs to justify the acceptance.

That has not really happened in Islam. Whatever “acceptance” there is has come from people who simply choose not to follow Islam perfectly, hence the millions of “moderates” who have moved to the West over the last century and lived perfectly good lives here, contributing to their society. The trouble is that once the “Islamists” appeared in their midst and proclaimed them to be apostates, the poor bastards had no theological come back.

People like Mohammed Umer Farooq, a pharmacist at a military base in Canada who said that he supported the Canadian forces in Afghanistan. A long-time immigrant to the West just like millions of other moderate Muslims. But his daughter Nada – a Canadian-born university student – started an Internet forum for Muslim teenagers in her area. During her trial (she and sixteen others had plans to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange, seize Parliament and even kidnap and decapitate the PM) this material was obtained and there was one thread where a poster thought it would be fun to to discuss what made Canada unique. Nada dumped on that quick smart: Who cares? We hate Canada. After her terror cell was exposed, poor old Mohammed Umber told the media that his daughter’s views – hating Canada, in favour of shipping gays off to Saudi Arabia to be executed – were news to him. But he did say that she had always been “100 percent religious”, whereas he was only 30%.

Most Muslims will tend to deny this, or reject it as an acceptable practice. They’re obviously more moral than their prophet. So, why follow him?

Dig into the history of the founders of Mormonism, “Prophets” Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and you’ll discover much that is similar – polygamy with underage brides, financial fraud in the case of Smith, wiping out a wagon train of westward-bound settlers in 1857 at Mountain Meadows, Utah in the case of Young.

Do we ask the same question of Mormons? I do given the occasion, but I’m then I’m direct, and I’m not really inquiring about the danger of their religion to the state.

But as racist belief and practice are proscribed in the original Mormon texts as “unchangeable teaching” maybe the issue isn’t the original tenets of the religion. Instead it is what the current adherents do…

As always, it is important to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. There’s nothing wrong with a religion where people choose to join it, and voluntarily follow its teachings.

Oh Bollocks, there is no freedom of choice in regards to what religion you follow, the religion you’re born into is religion you’ll most likely end up following i.e born into a muslim family, you’ll probably die a muslim? the chances of you becoming a Jew, Christian or a Hindi are pretty fucking slim & the same goes vice versa.
Sure things a little more lax in the West hence the growth in Atheism, but it wasn’t that long ago when it was frowned upon for a Catholic to marry a Anglican.

‘But as racist belief and practice are proscribed in the original Mormon texts as “unchangeable teaching” maybe the issue isn’t the original tenets of the religion. Instead it is what the current adherents do…’

edhunter, certainly the “render unto Caesar …” was a useful and important basis on which to build a separation of church and state. This became a big point of contention in the Middle Ages that saw tensions and at times out right conflict between Church and State. The conflict between Thomas Becket and and Henry II in England illustrates this. Then the Protestant centuries with further attempts to d to hold the power of the church in check by the state as witnessed by Henry VIII’s own reformation of the Catholic church.. Continuing with Northern protestant countries effectively breaking the power and monopoly of Rome .
Then we go forward to to the age of Enlightenment culminating in the US declaration of Independence with the constitutional convention that featured the necessity to separate church and state as an important step guaranteeing the citizens of the US meaningful freedoms.Similar kind of processes repeated in France and Britain weakening the power of religion over the lives of its citizens with that also saw the rise and advance secularism.
This long process and evolution and revolution in the West, is missing in Islam, making it today largely an intellectual and social backwater.Many under it must envy the West. But many also enjoy the submission to dogma and authority.

I’m pretty confident the Muslim world will one day have its own enlightenment. I’m not sure it will be in my lifetime though.

Nothing that takes place under the auspices of Sharia law in Islamic countries is any worse than what Christianity and the older European religions did in eons past. The difference is that Islamic barbarity is recorded in colour video, not on old parchment…

RRM, yes but a little over 200 years ago Western Europe made a decisive break from that parchment that gave rise to religious tolerance and freedoms etc effectively neutralizing the power of the Church.
Islam too needs to make that much important break from that colour video and the power of the Mosque. An equivalent enlightenment can’t come soon enough.

Has anyone here read Don Brash’s view in his recent book on Muslim immigration. He basically says they should be asked if they are prepared fit and and if not fuck off to some Muslim country. Of course Don being a gentleman phrases it a little differently.

Has anyone here read Don Brash’s view in his recent book on Muslim immigration. He basically says they should be asked if they are prepared fit and and if not fuck off to some Muslim country.

Well, yes, they used to try that back in the 16th Century, when they were afraid of Roman Catholic Recusants and Jesuits taking over Merrie England. As the answer was always invariably “yes”, unless torture was applied (and then the answer was always “no”, followed by death – for treason, mind you, NOT for heresy), I doubt it would work.

More unworkable policy and silly thinking aloud from the Mr Magoo of New Zealand politics…

Chuckbird, sorry but to be fair the immigrant Muslims ( generally from india ) I work with are mostly accommodating and willing to “fit in .” They have no desire to return to forms of Sharia etc and many feel relived from the obligation of attending the Mosque. Undoubtedly there will be small minority of exclusive brethren types.
I think Brash likes playing his old “race card ” from time to time.!

“In the U.S Christian ministers call for the stoning of homosexuals (and have helped fund and implement such laws in Africa) but have not the power to do it within the U.S. They would if they could, and if they had such power would fight among themselves to show who was the staunchest Christian most willing to do the greatest evil in their Gods name.

But secular authority has taken that power from them in the “West” after years of war over the matter of who has the right to govern.”

This statement is massively misleading to say the least.

The vast majority of Christian ministers, INCLUDING conservative Evangelical ministers, have done no such thing. A very, very tiny minority have, and they have no basis in the Gospel for doing so, as Jesus overturned the OT death penalty, as demonstrated in the story of the women caught in adultery.

“and if they had such power would fight among themselves to show who was the staunchest Christian most willing to do the greatest evil in their Gods name.”

This statement is an example of the outright ignorance amongst some on KB regarding Christianity. in over twenty years of being a Christian, including in very conservative Evangelical churches before I became an Anglican, I have never once met a minister who would fit this bizarre description.

Bigotry is formed by ignorance. By getting your information about another group of people from the internet, instead of actually spending time with them in reality.

“This is true of all religions that claim authority from divinity over humanity. Christianity makes exactly the same claim yet our secular government denies it’s priests authority.”

Rubbish. Christianity itself, as in what the Gospel actually teaches, does not advocate a theocracy. In many places in the New Testament Jesus is clear that His followers should not “lord it over others as the pagans do.” Repeatedly He teaches that leaders within the Church should be servants, not masters.

For over three hundred years the Church followed this, which is why it spread so rapidly amongst slaves and women and other powerless minorities in the Empire.

The “fall” of the Church came with Constantine, who for his own cynical purposes, decided to adopt the Christian Faith as the quasi-official religion of Rome. This corrupted the Church leadership, to some degree at least, and led to the view that Church and Empire should go hand in hand, despite this idea being in total contrast to the Gospel.

Jesus’ example is a man who served others, who did not seek worldly power, who spent much of his time with with the poor and the outcast, the fringe dwellers, those whom society despised. He did not rub shoulders with worldly leaders. And he died what was at that time a shameful slaves death.

The Church has, far too often, forgotten the teaching and example of it’s Lord, that is true, and the Church has sinned. It should never seek worldly power.

But there is nothing inherent within the teaching of Jesus that would lead to anything even remotely like Sharia Law or Islamic theocracy. Theocracy in Christian history is a perversion of the Gospel.

…to be fair the immigrant Muslims ( generally from india ) I work with are mostly accommodating and willing to “fit in .”

Indeed!

And let it be noted that India is

1. The world’s largest secular democracy, and

2. The nation with the largest Muslim population in the world.

I well remember an educated and tolerant (yet passionate) Muslim Indian I knew extolling the virtues of secularism in India, and comparing it with neighbouring Pakistan, which he described as a “failed state”.

It was something they inherited from the evil white imperialists (the British) not something that Islam or Hinduism ever produced on its own. And India has all sorts of problems with corruption and bribery which the West does not have. You don’t have to pay the police to follow up and catch the person who raped your daughter, for example.

“Any religious group, like any other, is perfectly entitled to “exert influence in politics”. Baptists try it, so do Anglicans, so too do farmers, bosses, and workers. And so too can Moslems – as long as they do so in a way that still respects the separate spheres of church/mosque/temple and state, and in a way that allows others with differing views to exercise their hard-won civic freedoms.”

Agreed Kimbo. It is important to distinguish between Christians and any other “religious” group seeking a say in democratic politics, and advocating theocracy. Christians have the right (as obviously do Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Atheists) to vote and advocate according to their principles. That is not theocracy, as is sometimes claimed on KB, but simply democracy.

That said, I personally caution the Church and Christians to be very careful about this, and very careful about what they advocate for, and to always remember the example Jesus, who always favoured to weakest of society, including those that the society of His day had condemned as sinners beyond redemption, and whose example is a servant not a master.

It was something they inherited from the evil white imperialists (the British) not something that Islam or Hinduism ever produced on its own. And India has all sorts of problems with corruption and bribery which the West does not have. You don’t have to pay the police to follow up and catch the person who raped your daughter, for example.

Irrespective of where it originated, the Indians (in the main) have made it their own.

And while India undoubtedly is very corrupt, nonetheless that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand – the ability of Muslims individually and collectively to live en masse successfully in a modern multi-cultural secular democratic state.

Read your own source. The sharia police had nothing to do with the acts of the vigilantes.

Religions and states should not be mixed up, with the state having the power to enforce religious dictates. This is what happens when you do.

Non sequitur. The state was not enforcing the dictate of gang rape.

As always, it is important to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. There’s nothing wrong with a religion where people choose to join it, and voluntarily follow its teachings.

“There is no compulsion in religion” ~ The Quran.
The west has an extensive history of radicalizing Islamists and using them as proxy terrorists (Fethulah Gulen, Graham Fuller).

But there’s a lot wrong with Islamism, which is a political ideology based on implementing certain interpretations of Islamic practice into law.

The Westminster system is based on implementing a certain interpretation of Christian practice into law.
The common law is fundamentally theistic, the secular interpretation of the common law by the NZ state is both false and corrupt.

It is my view that Islamism (not Islam) is as incompatible with having free democratic states as communism and fascism are. They are have an ideology where the state is all powerful.

There’s no such thing as a free democratic state, what you are describing is a mobocracy. Democracy implies recognition of due process and the rule of law, both of which restrict the freedom of the state to act as it pleases.

That said, I personally caution the Church and Christians to be very careful about this, and very careful about what they advocate for, and to always remember the example Jesus, who always favoured to weakest of society, including those that the society of His day had condemned as sinners beyond redemption, and whose example is a servant not a master.

Agreed. The primary apparatus of the state is law. But as Paul says in Galatians, “For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law…” In the first instance he is referring to the Torah, but Mosaic law does include civil legislation – that forms SOME of the basis for Christian involvement in shared civil political debate.

Plus when you get used to pulling the levers of secular power, it can soon becomes a power trip, and the primary means of trying effecting social change. Unlike Islam, Christianity is NOT primarily a legislative or political movement. Prohibition was one such example, primarily motivated by Christians, that did more harm than good.

I’ll gladly take Martin Luther’s advice: Better to be ruled by a competent Turk, than an incompetent Christian prince”

In the U.S Christian ministers call for the stoning of homosexuals (and have helped fund and implement such laws in Africa) but have not the power to do it within the U.S. They would if they could, and if they had such power would fight among themselves to show who was the staunchest Christian most willing to do the greatest evil in their Gods name.

Fentex, in a large enough population, you can find any example of specific nuttiness with which to tar a general group. I have certainly never met a Christian who would stone someone, and I’ve met a lot of Christians.

I hesitate to engage with you UT, but nonetheless, I’ll dip my toe in the water.

There are two possibilities: –

That generations of well-read and educated Old Testament scholars who have described Mosaic legislation as falling into the three general, broad and sometimes overlapping categories of ‘moral’, ‘ceremonial’, and ‘civil’ are right

…or you are.

As their documentary output, in contrast to yours, is subject to continual peer review, and…to not put too fine a point on it, they don’t come across as weird or unhinged like you

…I’ll settle for the fruits of their labour rather than yours at the present time, thanks very much.

UT,
”
Secular systems that operate in a common law context (like New Zealand) are fundamentally corrupt.”
Why ? and their religious counterparts like the old English Ecclesiastical Courts were free from corruption.?

[re:My observation Christians in the u.S call for stronging homosexuals] The vast majority of Christian ministers, INCLUDING conservative Evangelical ministers, have done no such thing.

in a large enough population, you can find any example of specific nuttiness with which to tar a general group. I have certainly never met a Christian who would stone someone, and I’ve met a lot of Christians.

Absolutely true, and beside my points. My position is religion is a tool used by society and how it will be invoked, what it will be permitted to justify, is shaped by the society around it. The support for slavery once preached from pulpits in the west is no longer tolerated.

But if priests were allowed to assert authority over society it would return. I personally believe secular authorities suppression of church authority allows people to express morality superior to what would be taught from the pulpit if priests could impress their own authority on people.

Remove secular authority and as I wrote before competition between priests to prove superior piety over each other would ratchet their intolerance constantly higher and the mechanisms of peer pressure compel obedience from their congregations.

It isn’t hard to see the waning of intolerance and barbarism in the west as religions influence became increasingly constrained by secular authority. That it is now constrained to societies wider morality only supports rather than repudiates my position, I think.

“First of all, the ceremonial (TAKE NOTE, UT) legislation had a built-in warning that it would only remain in effect until the real, to which it pointed, came. This built-in obsolescence was signalled in the text from the moment that the (TAKE NOTE, UT) legislation on the tabernacle and its services was first given. It is contained in the word “pattern” found in Exod 25:8, 40. This meant that the tabernacle, its priests, it sacrifices, and its associated ritual looked forward to the redemptive work of the Savior. In the meantime men and women had to be satisfied with that which was only a copy, a pattern, a shadow, a type of the real, the actual, the antitype that was to come.”

“In actual fact, the words, “the land is mine; you are strangers with me and sojourners (Lev XXV: 23) can be described as the theological basis for all (TAKE NOTE, UT) legislation concerning land tenure in Ancient Israel”

Fentex, couldn’t disagree more. Secularism is a parasite feeding on the accumulated moral capital of the church. Our society is going downhill as we get more secular. But guys like you are the problem. Here we have a post about yet another egregious act of violence in a Muslim country and the thing you most want to talk about is how Christianity is no better. When the west is lost to Islam I am blaming you.

UT, utter codswallop. Using a “perverted description of common law.? ” How so.?
“The states failing to recognize the natural right and liberty of people.?
Which “states “exactly.? and how and which ways are our liberties here are been compromised in NZ. .?
Your link is from what legal authority .?
Blackstone,, Halsbury’s the Laws of England or some pseudo legal text.?

Embrace Islamic Tourists
Another good way to increase population, like having only muslim slaughtermen in all the food processing plants. They have yearly certication and regular fortnightly inspections by a supervisor, of course for a fee.

more “reassurance factors” to Muslim tourists, like halal food, placing markers in hotel rooms pointing to Mecca (the direction in which Muslims must pray) and advertising nearby mosques where they could worship or connect with other Muslims…..

Islam encouraged travel “to visit friends and family”…….

Tourist operators interested in learning more about halal should contact the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand, and take steps like employing a Muslim staff member who would be halal-conscious, or offering a prayer room…..

I am unconvinced by all this chest thumping concerning the treatment of women due to extreme religious beliefs.

A few days back I posted examples of Morality Patrols using violence against women, including such things as acid attacks for wearing trousers ! The same demands for conservative dress and conduct being a common feature.

Not a single one of you hypocrites denounced it. In fact you attacked me for linking to the news articles and attempted to minimise it by saying it was a “minority” doing this. (In fact I provided Israeli news articles bemoaning the fact they are the fastest growing group in Israel today. All my sources were Jewish.) This is where fundamentalist religion leads regardless of what Arbrahamic faith you subscribe to. So cut the false concern people. You do not give a shit about womans rights !

Indonesia is the fourth biggest country in the world and contains the biggest Muslim population on the planet. They are overwhelmingly moderate and tolerant. The sort of ignorant pigs who do this are in no way representative of Indonesia. Sadly extremists from the Middle East are trying to radicalise poor and uneducated Indonesians. The biggest culprits are Obama’s Saudi mates. This is the result.

The Indonesian government needs to intervene. If they don’t then all aid and assistance to Indo should be stopped immediately. If the local extremists rise up and fight, then the extremists should be bought into line using what ever force is required. The festering sore of Aceh needs to be dealt with. Now.

The United Kingdom has had government sanctioned Sharia Courts for many years. I won’t give you links, you can check easily.

As far as I am concerned if those pasty faced self righteous pommy pricks get involved in another war we should leave them to it. I do not think any more Kiwis need die for cultural traitors who look down on us.

Ryan, do you deny the existence of, or merely the actual application of, Taqiyya (spellings vary) ? Presumably you are aware of the doctrine ?

Of course its actual meaning does vary, and officially it does not exist as such in Sunni theology. Primarily it is meant to be a means of concealing ones actual faith when in fear of persecution. Most commonly (when the concept was developed) it was Shia fearing persecution by Sunni, later it was specifically permitted in Spain after the reconquest. It is cited by Islamists as a tactic in a different way, to mislead the “infidel” in order to gain advantage. cf

“Quran 3:28 enjoins Muslims not to take the company of non-Muslims over Muslims unless as a means of safeguarding themselves. “Let not the believers take those who deny the truth for their allies in preference to the believers – since he who does this cuts himself off from God in everything – unless it be to protect yourself against them in this way…” Regarding 3:28, Ibn Kathir, a prominent authority writes, “meaning, except those believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers. In this case, such believers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly.” He quotes Muhammad’s companion, Abu Ad-Darda’, who said “we smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them,””.

Ryan, do you deny the existence of, or merely the actual application of, Taqiyya (spellings vary) ? Presumably you are aware of the doctrine ?

Ed, I deny the interpretation, and I’m extremely wary of unfalsifiable theories about the secret malicious agendas of identifiable groups of people.

Of course its actual meaning does vary, and officially it does not exist as such in Sunni theology. Primarily it is meant to be a means of concealing ones actual faith when in fear of persecution. Most commonly (when the concept was developed) it was Shia fearing persecution by Sunni, later it was specifically permitted in Spain after the reconquest. It is cited by Islamists as a tactic in a different way, to mislead the “infidel” in order to gain advantage.

Rather than ask which Islamists and how you know this, etc., let’s assume for a second that’s true. What is the practical impact of this? Why has it been brought up in this discussion?

I asked why not learn about Islam from Muslims. I was told, “Because you can’t trust Muslims; they are tricksy liars. Here are the links to information about Taqiyya.”

The only people who ever talk about Taqiyya are not Muslims, or Islamists. They’re anti-Muslims, often (not always) Christians, telling that same story: Muslims won’t tell you what they reaaaaaaaally believe, because Muslims are instructed to actively hide their real agenda.

“But all of my Jewish friends are poor and live in ghettos.”
“Ah, but where better to hide all of their gold?”

Unfalsifiable theories about evil secret agendas of identifiable groups of people are dangerous.

(Sorry, had to fit about four comments’ worth of thoughts into this one, as I’m off out to dinner. Have a good evening, Ed!)

igm (950 comments) says:
May 7th, 2014 at 5:00 pm
Wonder what this would mean to Labour’s rainbow room rectum reamers . . . might be a legal way to get “stoned”.

I share igm’s concern, as a fellow humanist. The hundreds of thousands of GAY MUSLIMS suffering persecution surely demands that we allow mass immigration under tax payer funded refugee programs. That is what Jesus would do

Thus all this so called called divine is all faith based stuff rather like creationism.?
Who cares.?
Thank goodness for the separation of religion and state here.!
Our prospects would be grim indeed if UT got half the chance to implement this divine law stuff.

Ugly, but Sharia is just gods law, which you frequently argue is the only real law.

People who promote Sharia simply believe that that only Gods law is binding. All law must therefore be consistent with Gods word. This applies to every aspect of the law, not just morality. Buying a house, a dispute with a neighbor, the road rules. All must be in accord with Gods wishes. Makes perfect sense if you – really – believe in God.

I can not see how your core position is any different. Though I am not saying you support the sort of stuff being reported on here !

Sharia law to be enshrined in British legal system as lawyers get guidelines on drawing up documents according to Islamic rules

Top lawyers have written guidelines for British solicitors on drafting ‘sharia-compliant’ wills which can deny women an equal share of their inheritance and entirely exclude non-believers, it was revealed today.

The Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, has written a guide on Sharia succession rules that will be used in British courts. It will mean that children born outside of marriage and adopted children could also be denied their fair share.

The guide states: ‘No distinction is made between children of different marriages, but illegitimate and adopted children are not Sharia heirs.

‘Sharia law, imported from theocracies like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, first began to be used here in a strictly limited form, dealing mainly with narrow issues like Islamic financial contracts.

‘But as the Muslim population has grown and the pervasive creed of multiculturalism has become ever more powerful, so Sharia law has rapidly grown in influence within some communities.

‘There are now estimated to be no fewer than 85 Sharia courts across the country — from London and Manchester to Bradford and Nuneaton. They operate mainly from mosques, settling financial and family disputes according to religious principles.’

[UglyTruth (3,347 comments) says:
May 7th, 2014 at 3:54 pm
“Secular systems that operate in a common law context (like New Zealand) are fundamentally corrupt.”

Why ?

Because the use a perverted description of common law. This corruption results results in the state failing to recognize the natural right of liberty of the people.]

THE SHARIA POSITION:

As you now read on you will begin to see, understand and realise the depth of the satanic iniquity. For the Serpent did deceive the entire human race as IT ‘authorised’ man via legislated ‘mandates’ to defy God and wield the Law of God against their sister & brother & father & mother.

The TRUE meaning of the word SHARIA is;

“The divine spiritual rule, principle, or criterion by which every ACTION of God’s children is judged by God but not by mortal man.”

Sharia law (Arabic: شريعة) is the body of Islamic law. The term means “way” or “path”; it is the legal framework within which the public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Islam.

Sharia deals with all aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues.

Sharia law to be enshrined in British legal system as lawyers get guidelines on drawing up documents according to Islamic rules

That is a misleading headline. Personal wishes expressed in wills are not British law, they are personal decisions about personal assets. Lawyers learning about Sharia law so as to better fulfill clients requests are not changing British legal principles.

I feel it is foolish to cry wolf about such things for it undermines credibility when real problems need to be confronted – such as the abominable British proscriptions on free speech.

Fentex, I agree regarding free speech. However the ADL has been doing that for years and wields way more power. The precedent was set years ago by such groups as well as the usual feminists and PC fanatics. My personal view is no restrictions on free speech. No exceptions. Ever !

The alternative is the established principle we have now where unprovable claims of being “offended” are enough to remove freedom of expression.

This is not a Muslim thing. There are people in jail in supposedly free European countries for being critical of another Middle Eastern religion. Guess which one ?

“This is not a Muslim thing. There are people in jail in supposedly free European countries for being critical of another Middle Eastern religion. Guess which one ?”

Which people in jail exactly.?

and UT,

“You’re so full of shit, Kea. Get professional help.”

To be fair ,kea raises a valid point using your grossly impaired reasoning. powers As I stated earlier our prospects would be grim if you even. just got half your way in N Z . But it wont happen given e.g your latest absurd theories about MH370.

stupidboy, you really should restrict your comments to things you know about. I feel a duty of care towards you and can not stand by while you embarrass yourself on this topic any longer. Have Mum show you how to conduct a google search so I do not have to litter my comments with cut n’ paste links.

It will also raise your level of debate beyond screaming Nazi !, name calling and the little pantomime of demanding a source > attacking the source > attacking the messenger > name calling > running away.

To be a better person.? Like Rwanda ? and pointing out the deficiencies of the Congress of Islamic Conference in todays debate thread and their failure to condemn the Darfur genocide and the Sudanese leader responsible , Sudanese President Omar Bashir ,an indicted War Criminal .
Oh , I forgot your friends in Russia and China vetoing attempts to intervene in Darfur stop the slaughter and murder.

Here we have a post about yet another egregious act of violence in a Muslim country and the thing you most want to talk about is how Christianity is no better.

My position is all religion in politics is wrong, and I put that position here only because I think those who find the point is Islam is evil are mistaken in limiting their objections.

I refer to Christianity on occasion in argument as examples because of a presumed familiarity among readers so that my example or analogy may be understood.

When the west is lost to Islam I am blaming you.

You credit me with too much influence. Also if religious war is fought over my home and is lost I would likely be dead and your blame fall on absent ears having fallen defending against it. Islam, Christianity or otherwise, stopping religious authority from asserting itself in my homeland is something I would fight against.

Which bits of divine law get into common law? Which bits are left out?

There is no definite answer, the original Torah (teaching) is described as being fluid, similar to the Muslim idea of abrogation. If you compare the legal code of King Alfred to the Mosaic law you can get a general idea of what was left out, eg animal sacrifice.

“God” is an ambiguous term, it can refer to a group of beings and it can refer to a single being.

Ugly, on other occasions you claim this “ambiguous” God provides the only valid authority to law. When I have reminded you of the other systems of belief you have responded along the lines of it all being recognition of the same God by different means.

That position is not an unusual one for theists to hold and I understand it. But it does not address my question of where Gods law comes from ?

I am still not sure about your claim that Gods law is not divine. We better consult some of the resident theists on that one I think.

Ugly, before all that there was Judaism. Does the bible, king Alfred and your vague and undefined God bind Jews too ? I feel they may have something to say about that (once they have finished dishing out rice to the MH370 passengers)

Contrary to what many believe, the word Islam is never used in the Quran as a title for the religion belonging only in the Quran nor a religion that is exclusive to the prophet Muhammad! The word Islam simply means Submission to God.

…

In this light, Islam is not the religion of the Quran alone, nor is the religion brought by the prophet Muhammad. It is written in the Quran that Islam (Submission to God), is as old as Abraham (22:78), and that all the practises of Islam were first given to Abraham and his sons long before Muhammad was born.

The problem with Islam is it has been hijacked for political purposes. Other religions have at other times, but it is far far worse with Islam right now. It is held up as a rallying point for the disaffected and those who resent Western hegemony. This has done the majority of Muslims no favours.

Those Christians who believe this situation is due to what is written in the Quran show an incredible lack of knowledge regarding the contents of their own holy reference book. Terrible things done by Christians past have similarly been given biblical context and approval.

Here’s a snippet from an article on Brunei’s shariah law I’ve just done for Gaynz.Com

Shariah law is Islamic penal and correctional policy which extends across the Muslim world, from Northern Nigeria to Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Sudan, Pakistan, Iraq’s Shia fundamentalist Mahdi Army…and now Brunei. Its exact prescriptions vary from Islamic society to society, although it usually deals with crime, politics, economics, sexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, everyday conduct and dietary abstinence. It is a combination of edicts from the Qu’ran, Islamic scholarly consensus, clerical consensus and analogical reasoning from prior applications. In Saudi Arabia, Iran and Brunei, it is interpreted as warrant for capital punishment, while Northern Nigeria, North Sudan and some Malaysian states make do with corporal punishment and flogging of convicted gay men and lesbians. Like the Christian Bible, the Qu’ran also has an account of the mythical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose alleged offence was gay sex, described as lavat within Muslim political and correctional theory. Shariah law and its applicability are a matter of keen debate within Islam itself.

Unfortunately, Brunei’s version appears somewhat hardline. As well as ordaining the death penalty for lesbian and gay sex, it also does so for straight infidelity and violence against women, although these will be brought in over a three year period. Brunei’s Shariah law variant also requires fines and imprisonment for theft, extramarital sex, false claims of extramarital sex, causing physical injury, alcohol consumption and conversion from Islam. Two years after the introduction of shariah law, amputations for theft will occur.

In it’s strictest sense Sharia Law predates Mohammed and the Quran, in the same way that Islam, as submission to the singular Creator, predates them.

The problem today is that many of those who claim to be Muslims reject some of the teaching of the Quran and elevate the Hadith and Sunnah above their rightful place, which leads to much of the injustice which is committed in the name of Islam and Sharia law.

It is a combination of edicts from the Qu’ran, Islamic scholarly consensus, clerical consensus and analogical reasoning from prior applications.

Sharia literally means “the way”, just as the first century disciples of the Messiah were called the people of the way.

What the west calls Sharia law is more accurately described as religious interpretations of the way. These interpretations can be at odds with the underlying principles of the way because of the corruption of the teaching with man-made doctrine.

Like the Christian Bible, the Qu’ran also has an account of the mythical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose alleged offence was gay sex

What a fatuous load of old cobblers blaming the West for Islam’s present predicament. The truth is its more one, their own ruling elites been out of touch with the aspirations of the ordinary person, two and likewise their Inman’s and Mullah’s been sufficiently inflexible and dogmatic ( like the mediaeval Catholic Church ) to consider a reformation of their own faith and powers .

I think that once again, it should be pointed out that “Islam” is not a monolith. It has its Shia/Sunni/Alawi denominations, gradations of political engagement and philosophy, entanglements with absolute monarchies, liberal democracies, dictatorships and other political systems, and has existed for nearly 1500 years as a global faith. Apropos that, take the example of Nigeria’s murderous Boko Haram cult. It is sectarian, attacking any Muslim critics, and many Nigerian and international Muslim associations condemn the group’s activities. Since 2010, it has regularly engaged in repeated terrorist bombings and assassinations of Muslim clerical critics, government officials, military personnel and western corporate and humanitarian figures.

It has its Shia/Sunni/Alawi denominations, gradations of political engagement and philosophy, entanglements with absolute monarchies, liberal democracies, dictatorships and other political systems

Many of the sectarian problems can be traced back to the fundamental corruption of the precepts of Quran, i.e the elevation of status of Mohammed. In the Quran Mohammad is not given any pre-eminence among the prophets, but most Muslims ignore this and interpret their religion according to the Sunnah, effectively abandoning their central precept of monotheism.

I think that once again, it should be pointed out that “Islam” is not a monolith.

No, but that’s just as much a part of the problem. What is happening here is an Islamic civil war around the world, and the West is catching increasing numbers of “stray” (and not so stray) rounds.

But Western non-Muslims cannot really do much about that war. Personally I’d be happier were there a whole lot more Sufi’s around and a lot less Wahhabists – but I don’t get to make that call, and if members of any of the sects are trying to kill me or otherwise screw over my life then I’m not going to care about differentiating between their shades of theology.

“The Biblical punishment for adultery is death. So why is this thread entitled ‘the evils of sharia law’ when Biblical teaching is at least as evil?”

A good question.

The answer is: because no mainstream school of Christian theology condones, promotes or carries out execution as punishment for apostasy, whereas *all* mainstream schools of Islamic theology do. In practice, this means that (as I pointed out) apostasy is punished by death in many (most?) majority-Muslim countries today.

Set aside comparisons with other religions and putting a positive spin on the Islamic question.
Islam has a 1400 year legacy of UTTER BARBARIANISM.
Islam is not just a religion but also a political ideology and must be viewed as such.
Yes there are many decent and peaceful muslim people but unfortunately when Islam becomes prevalent in an area generally the fundamentalists, possibly sponsored by the Saudi Petro Dollar hold sway and try to impose their will through Sharia Law as the moderates are suppressed.
They have no tolerance for other peoples beliefs or way of life because they believe themselves to be superior.
Their aim is conquest, preferably through political means but not limited to.
This constitutes sedition in western democracies. What would the future according to them hold for us?
I think David Farrar has given us an example of where things could lead for us should we remain in denial.
I wish the opposite were true.

Sharia is taking over the world and we in the West are just sitting back and letting it happen. Stop Muslim immigration now and throw away PC.
Warning: You MUST see this video to know exactly what is happening. New Zealand and Australia will be Islamic countries within 20 years.